Brazos Bend State Park is home to birds and wildlife. American alligators are present in the shallow lakes throughout the park. Photo Credit: Kathy Adams Clark. Restricted use.
Photo: Kathy Adams Clark, Kathy Adams Clark/KAC Production

Brazos Bend State Park is home to birds and wildlife. American...

An alligator stretches across a downed tree in Forty Acre Lake, at Brazos Bend State Park at Needville.
Photo: Steve Ueckert, Chronicle

An alligator stretches across a downed tree in Forty Acre Lake, at...

"You go to Brazos Bend, you're going to see an alligator," wildlife interpreter Sharon Hanzik says. "You're going to see that alligator in its natural environment. You can actually get within 30 to 40 feet of the animal and be safe."
Photo: Steve Ueckert, Chronicle

"You go to Brazos Bend, you're going to see an alligator," wildlife...

One of the many signs throughout Brazos Bend State Park cautions visitors about alligators, as a young boy fishes in the background.
Photo: PAT SULLIVAN, Associated Press

One of the many signs throughout Brazos Bend State Park cautions...

Larry Janik touches his grandson Hunter Janik's, 6, alligator shoe as they are seen through an alligator skull from a 13ft-4in 1200lb alligator at Janik Alligators in El Campo. Larry Janik is a veteran gator wrangler, the guy people call when a gator is found in a pond or on the freeway. "Handling alligators is my golf game, it's what I love to do," Janik said. I do it for the excitement. It's a way to make money and do something I love."
Photo: Michael Paulsen, Houston Chronicle

Alligators and crocodiles are smart enough to use sticks as tools to catch birds, scientists report.

More specifically, American alligators and crocodiles in India have been seen lying near egret and heron colonies, partly underwater with sticks across their noses, according to an article published online Nov. 29 in the journal Ethology Ecology and Evolution.

Entitled "Crocodilians use tools for hunting," the article explains that wading birds nesting near the alligators (which the birds tend to do for protection from other predators) try to grab the sticks and end up as lunch.

The authors are V. Dinets from the University of Tennessee's Psychology Department and J.C. Brueggen and J.D. Brueggen, both of the St. Augustine Alligator Farm Zoological Park in Florida.

A rookery pond in the St. Augustine park is used by more than 600 wading birds, mostly egrets and little blue herons, the authors state.

When building their nests, these wading birds can grow desperate for sticks and twigs and even end up stealing from their neighbors, according to the article.

In 13 years of working at the park, the Brueggens have regularly seen alligators floating in the pond with sticks balanced on their snouts as bird bait, the authors write.

At four different sites in Louisiana, Dinets saw a significant increase in alligators displaying sticks on their snouts during the time wading birds were building nests. It seemed unlikely that the increase was due to a higher number of sticks floating in the water or to increased bird activity, the article states.

Although the article didn't address Texas alligators, one Lone Star state alligator expert said he's never seen the described behavior.

But he's noticed others.

Amos Cooper, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department's go-to source on all things alligator, said the creatures catch birds all the time and he has seen them herding fish.

"A bunch of them come up at the same time and one or two splash water," said Cooper, who has worked with the state's alligator program since 1986. "Then they chase the fish to the bank. It's a learning process. They figure out how to do it."

As noted by the article authors, the "spectacular complexity" of crocodilian behavior has been recognized only recently.

"Historically viewed as lethargic, stupid and boring, crocodilians are now known to exhibit flexible multimodal signaling, advanced parental care and highly coordinated group hunting tactics."